Any Other Business | 29 March 2008

I think I’ve spotted the ‘trash and cash’ merchants, dining at Mayfair’s best tables

A posse of hedge fund managers came round to The Spectator the other day, not to indulge in ‘trash and cash’ — or the even less attractive ‘pump and dump’ — but to participate in a breakfast discussion about how they are perceived by the media and the political world, and what they ought to do about it. I was asked to kick-start the debate, so I gave it to them straight in the croissants. Most journalists are not sure who you are or what you do, I began, but what we think you are is ‘a slightly sinister, super-wealthy clique who occupy all the best tables at the best restaurants in Mayfair’; and what we think you do is to use secretive methods to provoke and profit from market price-swings that frighten the pants off ordinary people.